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James Corbett, Inside World Football

Saturday, August 31, 2013

Winning the 2022 World Cup hosting rights has proven to be a
mixed blessing for Qatar. The wealthy Gulf emirate, more than two years after
world soccer body FIFA voted in Qatar’s favor, is under greater scrutiny than
it ever has been and that it originally had bargained for. Qatar’s suitability
as a host is being questioned, its labor system is under attack and some court
decisions have earned it unfavorable publicity.

Writing in Arabian
Business as FIFA prepares at an executive committee meeting in October to
move the dates of the Qatari World Cup from summer to winter because of the
emirates’ extreme temperatures in June and July, Gay Wright raised the specter
of the unprecedented: “What if Qatar loses the 2022 World Cup?” That may be less
far-fetched than meets the eye given that the losers in the race for the 2022
Cup – the United States, South Korea, Japan and Australia – could initiate legal
action demanding a new vote on the grounds that a change of dates constitutes a
change of the terms of the bid.

To be sure, the logic of granting Qatar the Cup made
imminent sense. The Middle East and North Africa, a region where soccer has
played a key role in national and social development since the late 19th
century, has never hosted the world’s biggest sporting event. Much of the
argument against Qatar amounts to sour grapes, unjustified arrogance, and
bigotry.

Debate about a change of dates has opened the door to
renewed questions about the integrity of the bidding process at a time that
FIFA has yet to convincingly argue that it has drawn lessons from the worst
series of corruption scandals in its 108-year old history. Qatar plays into
that in two ways: FIFA’s executive committee voted in favor of Qatar despite
its experts having raised technical issues, including the question of summer
temperatures that sore beyond the 40 degrees Celsius mark, and FIFA President Sepp
Blatter’s own implicit admission that a FIFA investigation had been false
when it concluded that Qatar had not engaged in vote swapping with Spain and
Portugal, which were bidding jointly for the 2018 Cup. Blatter conceded in a BBC
interview that there had been a vote swap agreement, but dismissed it
because it had produced no advantage for either party.

The incident constitutes the only confirmed case of
potential wrongdoing but says more about FIFA’s concepts of integrity and
upholding rules and regulations than about Qatar. This is true for much of the
other suspicions that have been expressed about Qatar’s bid, including possible
incentives offered to national soccer federations represented on the FIFA
executive committee as well as the fact that the Gulf state allocated a
significantly larger budget to its bid campaign compared to its competitors.
All of that may raise ethical issues, but only goes to demonstrate that FIFA’s
bid rules have gaps in it similar to Emmenthaler cheese and a political deal
with former French President Nicolas Sarkozy that led to Michel Platini, head
of European soccer body UEFA, voting in favor of the Qatari bid.

If most countries bid for mega sporting events as country
branding exercises and potential boosts to their economy, for Qatar the
cost-benefit analysis in allocating funds was one that went to its core defense
and security concerns. Qatar, no matter how many sophisticated weapons it
purchases, will never be able to defend itself. The 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait
taught it two lessons: big brother Saudi Arabia, unable to defend itself, is an
unreliable guarantor. Confidence in the reliability of the United States has
since also been called into question. The international coalition that came to
Kuwait’s aid demonstrated that soft power and embedment into the global
community at multiple levels earns one friends when in need. Qatar’s soft power
is vested in sports and particularly soccer.

The ability to wield that soft power is proving to be more
complex than Qataris expected. The sour grapes stemming from Qatar’s financial
muscle, the arrogance of large nations seeking to delegitimize it on the
grounds of it being tiny in population and territory, and anti-Arab and
anti-Muslim prejudice threw up unexpected obstacles. So did the fact that the
winning of the World Cup exposed Qatar to greater international scrutiny than
ever before and made it more vulnerable to criticism by rights activists. The
silver lining is that like the World Cup that imposes a timeline on Qatar’s
massive infrastructure projects, it potentially offers the Gulf nation a
straightjacket for inevitable social reforms.

Conditions for migrant labor that accounts for the majority
of Qatar’s population has topped the agenda of activists with international
trade unions and human rights groups threatening a boycott of the World Cup and pressuring international
infrastructure contractors to adopt global standards. The issue is more than
simply capitalist exploitation or what the International Trade Union
Confederation (ITUC) terms modern slavery. To Qataris, it is existential
raising fundamental question about the nature, culture and identity of a
society that is theirs but in which they constitute only 15 percent of the
population. Ironically, Qatari leaders see sports as one way to strengthen
national identity.

Nevertheless, the fact that the cost of maintaining an
exploitative labor system and building walls between population groups goes
beyond reputational damage was laid bare in a recent study by researchers of Weill Cornell
Medical College in Qatar published in Perspectives
on Public Health. Their research concluded that Qatar would be near the top
of the United Nation’s Human Development Index (HDI) if adjustments were made
for the country’s large population of migrant workers. That conclusion cuts to
the core of Qatar’s soft power effort to project itself as a cutting edge, 21st
century knowledge-based society.

Similarly, a string of recent court cases and labor disputes
have cast a shadow over Qatar’s effort. Representatives of Asian American couple
Matthew and Grace Huang imprisoned on charges of having murdered one of their
three adopted black children argue that theirs is a “case of faulty science and
what appears to be racial and cultural misunderstandings by the Qatari
officials about American norms regarding international adoptions and homeschooling.
The Qatari officials have to date refused to acknowledge that mistakes were
made and the Huangs have been imprisoned in Qatar for nearly six months,” said
Alex Jakubowski of Capitol Media Partners. The Huangs moved to Qatar so that
Matthew could work on a World Cup-related infrastructure project.

An investigation of the sudden death of their daughter
Gloria of an eating disorder possibly due to malnutrition because of poverty
before her adoption raised the Qatari authorities’ suspicion. “The police
investigating Gloria’s death found the family situation inherently suspicious.
For example, the investigative police reports repeatedly suggest that Matthew
and Grace could not have had a legitimate reason to adopt children who were not
‘good-looking’ and who did not share their ‘hereditary traits. ’The
investigative reports theorize that Matthew and Grace ‘bought’ their children
in order to harvest their organs, or perhaps to perform medical experiments on
them … It appears they did not know that adoptions of children from other
countries and other racial backgrounds is common in the United States.,” Mr.
Jakubowski said.

Earlier this year, employment-related complaints by two
international players, one of whom was barred from leaving Qatar, threatened to
overshadow the 2022 World Cup organizing committee’s release of a charter of
worker’s rights designed to fend off criticism of labor conditions. In separate
interviews French-Algerian player Zahir Belounis, who was locked into a salary
dispute with Al Jaish SC, the club owned by the Qatari military, and Moroccan
international Abdessalam Ouadoo, who left Qatar last November to join AS
Nancy-Lorraine, complained about failure to honor their contracts and pay their
salaries as well as ill treatment.

The legal issues play into the hands of Qatar’s distractors.
Like with the criticism of Qatar’s labor conditions, the ball is in the Qatari
court. It can adopt a defensive position seeking to counter the criticism or
introduce reforms that would benefit its far more existential goal: embedment
in the international community as a nation that is forging its own path in the
21st century as a forward-looking, knowledge-based, equitable model
in one of the most volatile parts of the world.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam
School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s
Institute for Fan Culture, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East
Soccer blog.

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government has
announced a series of measures to prevent soccer stadiums and university
campuses from becoming major protest venues as the football season and the
academic year begins. In doing so, Mr. Erdogan is taking a leaf out of the
playbook of Egyptian military strongman Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi and other
Arab autocrats who demonize their opponents as terrorists.

In a series of recent statements aimed at students and
militant soccer fans who played prominent roles in the mass Gezi Park protests
in June, the government said it intended to replace private security forces in
stadiums and on campuses with police forces; was banning the chanting of
political slogans during soccer matches; obliging clubs to force spectators to
sign a pledge to abide by the ban before attending a game; and was cancelling
scholarships for students who had participated in anti-government protests.

The government said plainclothes policemen would mingle with
militant fans during matches and that their activities on social media would be
monitored. It also restricted the consumption of alcohol in stadiums.

The announcements were accompanied by stark statements by
Mr. Erdogan, his deputy Bulent Arinc and his sports minister Suat Kilic as well
as a video
issued by the Anti-Terrorism Office and the police warning that protests were
the first step towards terrorism.

The 55-second video featuring a young woman
demonstrator-turned suicide bomber warned the public that “our youth, who are
the guarantors of our future, can start with small demonstrations of resistance
that appear to be innocent, and after a short period of time, can engage
without a blink in actions that may take the lives of dozens of innocent
people.” Throughout the video, the words ‘before it is too late’ are displayed.

The video followed the indictment of 20 members of Carsi,
the support group of storied Istanbul club Besiktas JK that has a huge
following across the country on charges of belonging to an illegal organization. Carsi played a leading role in the mass
anti-government protests in June sparked by a brutal police crackdown on
environmentalists protesting plans to bulldoze Gezi Park on Istanbul’s iconic
Taksim Square to make place for a mall. Carsi joined forces in the protests
with supporters of Beskitas’ two Istanbul arch rivals, Fenerbahce FC and
Galatasaray FC.

The government measures are part of a battle in Turkey for
public space. With the banning in early July of protests on Taksim, protests
moved to neighborhood parks across the city. In Besiktas, Abbasaga Park statues
of prominent Turkish politicians, journalists and authors wearing gas masks
looked down on Hyde Park-style nightly gatherings.

“Taksim is
everywhere, resistance is everywhere,” was the motto of the nightly meetings.
The underlying tone was one that resembled the breaking of the Arab world’s barrier
of fear. United in a desire for greater freedom, protesters from diverse
worldviews and walks of life displayed with chants, jokes and art a humor-laced
irreverence of power. Carsi members wearing their club’s black-and-white often
moderated the deliberations. They insisted that their sole ideology was
opposition to repression and inequality, quoting the group’s slogan, ‘Carsi,
her şeye karşı!’ (Carsi is against everything!).

Carsi’s claiming of Abbasaga Park like the protesters’
requester of parks elsewhere constituted a rebuke of the city government’s
definition of who was entitled to enjoy the public spaces. At a ceremony to
mark the reopening of Gezi Park in early July Istanbul governor Huseyin Avnni
Mutlu warned that protests would not be allowed.

“We invite our folks, our people, our children, the elderly
and families to visit the park,” Mr. Mutlu said. His implicit message was that
families were the unit in society entitled to claim public space, not sub-groups
like gays who had frequently gathered in the park prior to the protests. “If
certain groups claim to be the public and argue that ‘This park belongs to us,
we’re the owners of this park,’ we will not allow that,” Mr. Mutlu said.

In the government’s latest salvo, Deputy Prime Minister Arinc
said the government measures were in response to information that fans and
students were planning mass protests in September. Mr. Erdogan warned that any
protests would be countered by police in what he described as the necessary
manner. Mr. Kilic went a step further threatening that “those who politicize
the stadiums will pay the price.”

The sports minister added that “if some groups try to
infiltrate fan groups, they should know that Turkey is not a banana
republic. We have fought terrorism for thirty years. We can handle this too. I
do not want to be threatening, but you should know that it is not worth risking
yourself and your team. Everyone must know that the law will be enforced. I
hope that no one will be hurt, but this can happen. I am noting that there will
be electronic monitoring in stadiums. Sports prosecutors will watch the games
in stadiums, and we are introducing electronic tickets to monitor the seat of
every supporter.”

The minister had a similar message for students. “They can
try Gezi protests in universities. People should not ruin their lives, should
not have criminal records,” he said in an ironic twist given that Turkey with
its history of military coups and the Erdogan government’s crackdown on the
media has scores of intellectuals and journalists with police records. Among
those is Mr. Erdogan himself, who spent four months in prison for reciting a
controversial poem.

Journalist Burak Bekdil reported that Şamil Tayyar, a member
of parliament for Mr. Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), suggested
that the government punish Besiktas if its fan disobey the ban on political
slogans by seizing its stadium and turning it into a park. Alternatively, Mr.
Bekdil said the government could follow rent-a-fan model of the late North
Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il. Mr. Kim paid Chinese actors to attend North Korean
games during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. “Mr. Kim was right. When you
cannot win hearts and minds you can always rent them," Mr. Bekdil wrote.

Turkey’s battle lines are being drawn in various ways. Mr.
Erdogan broke into tears last week during a television interview as a video was
aired with the text of a letter that incarcerated Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood
leader Mohammed el-Beltagy wrote to his 17-year old daughter who was killed on
Cairo’s Raba’a al Adawiya Square when security forces broke up the group’s
sit-ins earlier this month. “I believe you have been loyal to your commitment
to God, and He has been to you. Otherwise, He would not have called you to His
presence before me,” Mr. El-Beltagy, who was unable to attend h daughter’s
funeral, wrote. Mr. Erdogan said it reminded him of his own children who
complained that he did not have time to spend with them.

To be sure, many Turks share the sentiments of Mr. Erdogan
who has emerged as one of the fiercest critics of the Egyptian military’s coup
and crackdown. Like the prime minister, international midfielder and national
soccer captain Emre Belozoglu showed the four finger Raba’a salute that has
become symbolic of Raba’a al Adawiya Square after he scored for Fenerbahce in
their opening game of the season.

Mr. Erdogan failed however to express similar emotion for Ali
Ismail Korkmaz, a protester in Eskisehir who was badly beaten on June 2 by men
claiming to be cooperating with the police and was kicked several times in the
head by a policeman. Mr. Korkmaz died on July 8 of a cerebral hemorrhage. His
ordeal was documented in a video disclosed by Radikal
newspaper.

The government’s tough language follows indications that its
hard-handed attempts to fend off further protests are failing. If anything,
they may well be fuelling them. Fans of Fenerbahce reminded the government that
the battle was not over and may have just begun when they chanted “Everywhere
Is Taksim Square! Everywhere Is Resistance!” and demanded Mr. Erdogan’s resignation
during a match against Red Bull Salzburg. Supporters of Ankara’s Gencerbigli FC
sought to circumvent the ban by chanting ‘Political Slogan’ during a recent
match.

Writing on the T24 news website, soccer
journalist Gulengul Altinsay charged that the government was introducing
martial law in the stadiums. Addressing the government, Ms. Altinsay suggested
that “while you are at it, why not declare in a state of emergency manifesto
which slogans are permissible. If that does not work, you can fill the stands
with dummies. You have no choice, this nation uses its wits when it is silenced.”

In another twist of irony, the government fears that the one
Istanbul stadium named after Mr. Erdogan could become a focal point of protest.
That is where Besiktas is playing its home games during the coming season while
its own pitch is being renovated.

The issue is not purely symbolic. Municipal elections in
Istanbul next March are gearing up to be a litmus test for Mr. Erdogan’s
ambitions to swap the prime ministry for the presidency after the next
parliamentary election.

“If Erdogan loses Istanbul, his power base could begin to
unravel. That is why he is turning stadiums into police states. Sports has
become a major battlefield. Besiktas is where it is being fought out. Erdogan
is pitting Besiktas chairman Fikret Orman against Carsi who voted him into
office. It’s the same strategy he used with the media exploiting their
financial vulnerability,” said a prominent political analyst.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam
School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s
Institute for Fan Culture, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East
Soccer blog.

Saturday, August 24, 2013

Activists have stepped up calls for a boycott of the 2022
World Cup if Qatar fails to bring conditions for its majority foreign work
force in line with international labor standards. The campaign seeks to exploit
potential Qatari vulnerability at a time that world soccer body FIFA gears up
to decide whether to move the first World Cup to be held in the Middle East and
North Africa from summer to winter.

In a strengthening of the boycott campaign waged since Qatar
was awarded World Cup hosting rights in late 2010 by the International Trade
Union Confederation (ITUC), which has 175 million members in 153 countries,
Anti-Slavery International this week declared its support for shunning the
wealthy Gulf state.

“It would be a dreadful pity and an enormous shame on all of
us if we are prepared to participate in a world cup that has been brought to us
by slavery,” said Aidan McQuade, the group’s director.

ITUC secretary general Sharan Burrow said her organization
was pressuring major companies from the United States, Britain, France and
Brazil that were likely to win contracts for $75 billion worth of World
Cup-related projects that include stadiums, rail and subway networks, hotels,
and a new city that would house 200,000 people to incorporate workers’ rights
in their bids. Foreign workers account for 94 percent of Qatar’s work force.

“It is awkward for Western countries who are promoting their
businesses in the Gulf to talk about the rights of migrant workers who may be
employed by westerners. There has to be a discussion about this,” said an
Amnesty International spokesman, James Lynch.

ITUC has dismissed Qatar’s efforts to improve recruiting,
working and social conditions because they fail to encompass internationally
accepted principles of the right of collective bargaining and to form
independent trade unions. Qatar’s 2022 Supreme Committee unveiled this spring a
Workers’ Charter that would be binding on World Cup-related projects. The
charter, a set of lofty principles, affirms the right of those working on
projects “to be treated in a manner that ensures at all times their well-being,
health, safety and security.”

Similarly, Qatar Foundation, has said that it was working on
a charter of its own and was introducing sweeping measures that “can guarantee
the rights of workers at all stages of the migration cycle − from the moment
they are recruited and until they are repatriated to their home countries.” It
said its charter and measures were “based upon a holistic and principled
approach that combines Qatari Labor Law and international best practice.”

A key bone of contention with activists is the fact that Qatari
labor law enshrines the principle of kafala or sponsorship, under which an
employee is beholden to his employer. The ITUC has denounced the system that is
common in the Gulf as modern slavery. The Supreme Committee has argued that its
“commitment is to change working conditions in order to ensure a lasting legacy
of improved worker welfare. We are aware that this cannot be done overnight.
But the 2022 FIFA World Cup is acting as a catalyst for improvements in this
regard.”

Anti-Slavery International joined the boycott campaign as
the number of deaths of unskilled or semi-skilled workers in Qatar appeared to
be on the rise. It also came as FIFA was gearing up for an executive committee
meeting in October that would decide whether to move the 2022 tournament to the
winter months because of Qatar’s overbearing summer temperature. The potential
move has sparked calls for the Cup to be moved to another country.

The embassy of Nepal in Doha, whose nationals figure prominently
in the construction sector that has been boosted by vast infrastructure
projects, many of which are World Cup related, reported last month the highest spike
so far in the number of deaths of Nepalese laborers. Of the 32 who perished in July,
13 workers in their 20s died of a cardiovascular disease; 11 others were killed
in road incidents and another eight in work-related accidents, the embassy’s
second secretary, Harihar Kant Proudel, told Doha News.

“There have been cases where we have suspected that there
has been a mutual understanding between the doctor and the company, and the
doctor has made a false report saying that they died of cardiac arrest – it is
easier for a company to say they died of that,” Mr. Proudel said. He attributed
the deaths to the fact that “many workers are going without meals, and without
enough water, then they are working in high temperatures all day. The weather
here is different from our country. Our nationals are not used to it.”

Mr. Proudel’s assertions stroked with conclusions of a
recent study in the Journal of Arabian Studies that listed late wages,
significant debts accrued to pay labor brokers, and inconsistent access to
healthcare as common problems encountered by foreign workers in Qatar. Funded
by the Qatar National Research Fund, the study, entitled APortrait of Low-Income Migrants in Contemporary Qatar, said that 56 percent
of the workers interviewed reported not having received a government-mandated
Hamad health card, needed to access free healthcare. Qatar University meanwhile
reported that the vast majority of employers in Qatar illegally confiscated
workers’ passport at the outset of their employment.

The issue of workers’ rights touches on one of Qatar’s most
existential issues: demography. Qataris account for approximately 15 percent of
their country’s population. A recent report by the Doha-based Arab Center for
Research & Policy Studies, ‘Foreign
Labor and Questions of Identity in the Arabian Gulf,’ concluded that fears that
any degree of integration of foreigners would threaten family-run Qatar’s
political, cultural and social identity made change unlikely.

“The issues touches upon the essence of the question of the
transition towards a ‘citizenship society. … In the absence of the
establishment of a modern state based on the bond of citizenship, justice, the
rule of law, and equal opportunity among all components of society, it is
extremely difficult to assimilate immigrants. … The Gulf countries, due to the
delay in the construction of the modern state on the institutional, legal and
constitutional levels, have extreme difficulties integrating the population of
their home societies – let alone assimilating immigrants,” the report said.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam
School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Wuerzburg’s
Institute for Fan Culture, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East
Soccer blog.

Abstract

With soccer playing an increasingly important political role in both Turkey and Indonesia, this essay seeks to highlight similarities in the politics of soccer in two parts of the world that share cultural and political traits but are geographically distant from one another.

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

With Egypt deeply polarized politically and religiously, kick-starting
a political process capable of bridging divides and creating an inclusive
democratic process seems a distant prospect. It will ultimately depend on the
likely shrinking over time of the military's popular base and the government's
realization that it needs the United States and the European Union to tackle
the country's vast economic problems.

Amid entrenched political battle lines that have been reinforced by a
brutal security force crackdown on supporters of ousted President Mohammed
Morsi, Egyptians would do well to look at past events in the Philippines as
well as the last 2.5 years of their own history. Military support for a popular
uprising forced elected Philippine President Joseph Estrada out of office
twelve years ago. Nine subsequent years of corrupt government by Mr. Estrada's
successor, Gloria Arroyo, have since persuaded many to rethink their original
backing for theundemocratic way the president was ousted.

Egypt has a long way to go before liberals and revolutionaries realize
that they made a pact with the devil by joining forces with the military, the
security forces and supporters of ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak to topple
Morsi, the country's first democratically-elected president. The
resignation of Mohammed el Baradei and charging of the liberal former
international civil servant and Nobel Prize winner as vice-president in Egypt's
military-appointed government in protest against the bloody break-up of Muslim
Brotherhood's protests constitutes the first crack in popular support for the
coup against Morsi. It is an initial, very tentative step down the Philippines'
trodden path. Mr. El Baradei complained in his resignation letter that "the
beneficiaries of what happened today (the break-up of the Brotherhood protests)
are those who call for violence, terrorism and the most extreme groups".

It took many Filipinos years to privately realize that the
unconstitutional ousting of a democratically elected president had not solved
their problems; the odds are it will take Egyptians a significant amount of
time to follow suit. Six weeks of political strife with opposing political
forces in Cairo protesting on highly symbolized rival squares have entrenched
deep-seated distrust between multiple groups in society and institutions. It
has pitted the left, the secularists and the Christian Copts against Islamists
and rural Sunni Muslim Egypt, and significant portions of the population that
are likely to increase in numbers against the military as well as the
security forces.

The political fault lines have for now allowed the military, the
security forces and the Mubarak leftovers to exploit popular support to return
Egypt in many ways to theera of Mr. Mubarak, who was toppled in
2011 by an alliance of leftists, secularists and Islamists. The interests of
the alliance coincided with those of the military that was keen on preventing Mr.
Mubarak from installing his son Gamal, who was surrounded by businessmen who
posed a threat to the economic and commercial interests of the armed forces, as
his successor. That alliance produced 17 months of failed military rule
followed by the rise of Mr. Morsi, whose one-year tenure was marked by
incompetence, economic failure, arrogance and autocratic and majoritarian
tendencies.

The military this time round successfully exploited popular
anti-Brotherhood sentiment to achieve public acceptance of repressive policies,
the revival of the coercive state and a prevalence for security rather than
political solutions for political problems. It did so through a combination of
demonization of the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization reinforced by a
campaign in dominant media that were either state-owned or co-opted.

To be sure, the military despite its hard handedness and single-minded
determination to secure its perks, privileges and role as the ultimate
political arbiter has consistently enjoyed the confidence of a majority of
Egyptians for years. Nevertheless, its agenda in recent months has been to cut
the Brotherhood down to size, if not destroy it, at the risk of ever deeper
polarization of Egyptian society and civil disobedience or political violence
that would be brutally suppressed. The declaration of emergency law and a
curfew in 14 Egyptian provinces has further set the stage. The security forces,
eager to take revenge for their humiliation in the post-Mubarak era when they
emerged as Egypt’s most despised institution, have proven that they are happy
to oblige.

The military and the government, its civilian façade, went out of its
way since Mr. Morsi’s ouster to ensure that the Brotherhood would not engage in
any political process despite its insistence that there was a place at the
table for the group. The Brotherhood had little reason to take the military by
its word with many of its leaders, including its spiritual guide and Mr. Morsi,
in prison awaiting trial; others being sought by security forces; its media
outlets shut down; a campaign in state-run media as well as media associated
with the anti-Morsi campaign designed to demonize the Brotherhood; the
targeting of Brotherhood-related businesses; and finally the deaths of hundreds
in the break-up of pro-Morsi protests.

Efforts by the United States, the European Union and Gulf states were
thwarted when the military in contrast to the Brotherhood rejected a compromise
formula that would have allowed both parties to save face and would have
averted this week’s bloodshed. "We had a political plan that was on the
table that had been accepted by the other side (the Muslim Brotherhood). They
could have taken this option. So all that has happened today was
unnecessary," Reuters news agency quoted said EU envoy Bernardino Leon,
who co-led the mediation effort with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William
Burns. The compromise would have involved the release of imprisoned Muslim
Brothers, an honorable exit from the presidency for Mr. Morsi, an amended
constitution and new elections. The failed mediation effort served the military
as a fig leaf that allowed it to suggest that it had attempted to secure a
political solution before it cracked down.

The turmoil in recent weeks in Egypt has proven that Egypt’s Western
allies and even the United Arab Emirates, a staunchly anti-Morsi Gulf state
that has funded the post-Morsi government and worked with the US and the EU to
find a political solution, have at this point, at best, limited leverage. That
is likely to change once the military and its government recognizes that they
need the support of the international community to secure a crucial
International Monetary Fund loan as well as Western aid. In the short term,
Gulf funding will allow the government to fund its operations. Gulf money
however is a Band-Aid that will not enable the government to tackle Egypt’s
structural problems. The need for international support is likely to be
enhanced once the military’s popular cover disintegrates.

The United States and the European Union have so far shied away from
calling a spade a spade. While they have condemned the violence and called for
dialogue, they have refused to define the military ousting of an elected
president as a coup. In the absence of any real leverage, doing so, including
in the United States accepting the legal requirement of a cut-off of $1.5
billion a year primarily in military aid, would enhance Western leverage when
Egypt turns to them for help. That leverage could enable Western nations to
help Egypt when it is ready to cut short a path that post-Mubarak Egypt has
been traveling for the past 2.5 years and that took the Philippines more than a
decade to learn.

James M. Dorsey is a
senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies as Nanyang
Technological University in Singapore, co-director of the Institute of Fan
Culture of the University of Würzburg and the author of the blog, The Turbulent
World of Middle East Soccer.

Saturday, August 17, 2013

A soccer brawl last year in which more than 70 militant
soccer fans died galvanized significant numbers of Egyptians against the
military and security forces. The brawl accelerated the military’s desire to
turn power over to an elected government.

Eighteen months later, mass protests, involving Muslim
Brothers, non-Brothers and militant, street battle-hardened soccer fans are
opposing the military ouster of elected president Mohammed Morsi and the
subsequent brutal crackdown on the Brotherhood, both of which were backed by a
significant segment of Egyptian society.

The ingrained resistance to military rule and arbitrary
security forces of many soccer fans and the youth groups that formed the
backbone of the popular uprising that forced President Hosni Mubarak out of
office in early 2011 is again visible in more than the fact that it has been
adopted by a far wider part of the Egyptian public. It has been reinforced by
what many Egyptians perceive to be a restoration of repressive features of the Mubarak
era.

Events in recent days have demonstrated that while Egypt
remains deeply divided public opinion is fluid and that backing for the
military coup against Mr. Morsi is fragile and conditional. The first cracks in
that support have manifested themselves despite a significant number of Egyptians
egging the military and the security forces on to be even tougher in their
crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood.

In quick succession, various prominent supporters of the
coup have resigned or sought to distance themselves from the brutality of the
crackdown that as of this writing has caused the death of more than 700 people.

Mohammed el Baradei, an international civil servant and
Nobel Peace Prize laureate, resigned as vice-president of the
military-appointed government that succeeded Mr. Morsi because in his words "the
beneficiaries of what happened … are those who call for violence, terrorism and
the most extreme groups".

Khaled Dawoud, spokesman of the National Salvation Front, an
umbrella for 11 pro-military political parties, stepped down days later because
a majority of the Front refused to condemn the bloodshed at the hands of the
security forces. His successor, Ahmed Howari, in one of his first public
statements was careful to balance his remarks with expressions of sincere
regret about the way security forces were seeking to repress the opposition to
the military.

The impact of the fans goes further than the fact that their
anti-military attitudes have gained greater currency because of qualms about
military disruption of a democratic process, even if Mr. Morsi had succeeded in
becoming widely reviled after only a year in office, and security force
brutality that was one of the main drivers of Mr. Mubarak’s ousting. It is also
evident in various forms of pro-Morsi protest, including the jumping up and
down while chanting, a typical way for militant soccer fans or ultras to
support their club, and the waving of flags with a skull and crossbones emblem.

By the same token, Egypt’s deep polarization as well as the
crisis in Egyptian soccer that was accelerated by last year’s deadly brawl in
Port Said has not left the militant soccer fans untouched. While the ultras as
organizations have refrained from joining the fray, many of their members and
leaders have, reflecting the gamut of political views in their ranks.

Ironically, many Ultras White Knights, the fan group of
storied Cairo club Al Zamalek SC, which traces its root to support of the
monarchy that was toppled by a military coup in 1952 and replaced by Arab
nationalist leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, an army colonel, who became the club’s
president and brutally repressed the Brotherhood, have joined the pro-Morsi
protests. The Black Bloc, the vigilante group that emerged last year to defend
anti-Morsi protesters against both the security forces and Brotherhood
attackers are believed to be siding with the police in the crackdown on the
Brotherhood.

The UWK’s arch rivals, Ultras Ahlawy, the fan group of Al
Ahli SC, historically the nationalist club, this week issued its first
anti-Brotherhood statement. The statement ended the group’s silence with regard
to the government while Mr. Morsi was in office. By refraining from attacking
the government, the group had hoped that harsh verdicts would be served in the
trial of those responsible for the deaths in Port Said. It got only partial
satisfaction. While 21 supporters of Port Said’s Al Masri SC club were
sentenced to death, seven of the nine security officials were acquitted.

“The ultras have become fascists. Like Egypt, they have
collapsed. They have no values and no real beliefs,” said a former ultras
leader who left his group in disgust at the political turn it had taken.

In a perverse way, the ultras’ dilemma is not dissimilar
from that of the Brotherhood. Neither could decide what it really was. The
Brotherhood has yet to make up its mind what it is: a social or a political
movement. That decision may become easier if it survives the current crackdown
and potentially emerges strong enough to negotiate terms of a political
solution to Egypt’s crisis.

The ultras refused to acknowledge that they were as much
about politics as they were about soccer. Their battle for freedom in the
stadiums and their prominent role in the toppling of Mr. Mubarak, the
opposition to the military rulers that succeeded him and the Morsi government
made them political by definition. Yet, those who populated their rank and file
were united in their support for their club and their deep-seated animosity
towards the security forces but on nothing else.

The ultras’ fate could change if Egypt continues down the
road it has embarked on of a restoration of Mr. Mubarak’s police state. Repression
with little more than a democratic facade could again turn stadium into political
battlefields against military and security force control whether overt or
behind-the scenes; brutal and unaccountable security forces; and autocratic
government masked by hollowed out democratic institutions.

“I’m afraid of the return of the military state. That is not
what I fought for in the stadiums and on Tahrir Square. I’m also afraid of the
Brotherhood. It’s a choice between two evils. If you ask me now, I’d opt for
the military, but that could well change once this is all over,” the former
ultra said.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam
School of International Studies as Nanyang Technological University in
Singapore, co-director of the Institute of Fan Culture of the University of
Würzburg and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World
of Middle East Soccer.

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About Me

James M DorseyWelcome to The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer by James M. Dorsey, a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Soccer in the Middle East and North Africa is played as much on as off the pitch. Stadiums are a symbol of the battle for political freedom; economic opportunity; ethnic, religious and national identity; and gender rights. Alongside the mosque, the stadium was until the Arab revolt erupted in late 2010 the only alternative public space for venting pent-up anger and frustration. It was the training ground in countries like Egypt and Tunisia where militant fans prepared for a day in which their organization and street battle experience would serve them in the showdown with autocratic rulers. Soccer has its own unique thrill – a high-stakes game of cat and mouse between militants and security forces and a struggle for a trophy grander than the FIFA World Cup: the future of a region. This blog explores the role of soccer at a time of transition from autocratic rule to a more open society. It also features James’s daily political comment on the region’s developments. Contact: incoherentblog@gmail.comView my complete profile